The Performative Biofact

Since the 20th century the relationship between ecology and the arts has increasingly shaped various concepts of performance art. These have developed training and working systems such as biomechanics, somatic dance techniques or psychological realistic acting methods (Giannachi and Steward 2005) based on the analysis of natural phenomena. However, the life sciences have fundamentally changed what we understand by nature and ecology and, as the philosopher and biologist Nicole C. Karafyllis explains, the Aristotelian demarcation between nature and technology as a separation between what grows and what does not is no longer valid. Agri-technology and biotechnology methods such as genetic engineering or cloning mean that life forms can to a great extent also be artificial or technological. Consequently, this project, The Performative Biofact, aims to rethink and practically research this relationship. The theories of new materialism, and in particular the work of the scientist Karen Barad, who questions the dichotomy between ontology and epistemology, open up new perspectives on the relationship between material and performativity, which have previously only been partially taken into account in performance theory and practice. This project is developing a new experimental process involving the provocative production of a semi- artificial, semi-natural being, with the equal treatment of apparatus, humans and non-humans. In Nicole C. Karafylliss terminology, the hybrid being that is to be created, whose ontological status alternates between animate and inanimate, can be described as a biofact. We question the history that the performative production of material derives from and how technological renewal will change our understanding of ecology and art in future. This takes place through the inclusion of historical, culturally relevant relics. New biofacts will be created out of this biological, animalistic material. In this interaction between the human and technology, the figure of the animal also enters the process. Thereby we seek to avoid a solely anthropocentric perspective on the process and foster new creative solutions. The challenge is to avoid the anthropomorphising of the animal, and instead to liberate it from its passive position as the exploited other. The set-up to be developed together with the co-researchers in this project is intended to unite transdisciplinary methods of archaeology, performance, molecular biology and genetics. Through the concept of performative creation of a biofact in a model experiment, new scope for action and perception arises and offers opportunities to continue the research on the constantly changing relationship between ecology and the arts.

While the Covid pandemic has made people more aware that non-human agency has a large impact on human lives, artists and performers increasingly address microscopic actors that indeed have macroscopic effects. How do bacteria, viruses, extra-terrestrial organic matter, enzymes, pheromones, smaller organisms such as ants or worms, cultured neurons or systems of high-speed algorithmic finance 'perform'? And how do artists, directors and cultural producers co-create with this large scope of generally overlooked agencies, facing unprecedented challenges? Within this interdisciplinary research project "The Performative Biofact" we gained insight through practice and research into the concept of 'microperformativity' and creatively embrace these conceptual, aesthetical, technical and ethical challenges, to question anthropocentric attitudes in the arts. 'Microperformativity' denotes a current trend both in performative art practices and theories of performativity to destabilize human scales (both spatial and temporal) as the dominant plane of reference, and to emphasize biological and technological micro-agencies that, beyond the mesoscopic human body, relate the invisibility of the microscopic to the incomprehensibility of the macroscopic. Investigations into microperformativity redefine what art, philosophy and the technosciences actually consider a 'body' today, in times when performance art shifts towards generalized and pervasive performativity in art. Microperformative positions enquire how artistic methods can engage critically with technologies that exploit life on a microscopic and molecular level to merge bio- and digital media, including for global capitalization. How can performative art and discourses inform these processes to think biopolitics and necropolitics in relation to the dystopia of economy and the utopia of ecology alike?